Even Yahweh

A Poem by Will Falk

From Wayfarer Magazine, Issue 42»

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Photo by Mohammed Ibrahim

I try to flee the news from Gaza
on interstates west across Indiana,
Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska.
The corn and cottonwoods
show me there is no
earthly refuge from the truth.

There were bison here, once.
But God’s chosen ones
could not reap what they sowed
until the Oto, Cheyenne, and Arapahoe
were starved out of the way.

Now the only buffalo
you’ll find on the great plains
are ones stuffed in pioneer museums.
Their original hunters – not the ones
who slaughtered the beasts
with repeating rifles from railcars,
took only the hides and
stacked the skulls five stories high –
are stuffed into dust bowls
that boomed sooner than
Oklahoma oil pipelines.

Even Yahweh, they say,
stole his fair share of land.
Ask Goliath and his Philistines.

So, I do. And all I find
is the ashes of bombed out buildings
sprinkled like powdered sugar
on deep fried lies, broken babies
scattered on piles of shattered bones,
and a cold, October wind that
blows through the bile of
my ever-boiling belly
to harden my words like lead
into bullets robbed from me
for David’s new long range sling.

Will Falk (he/him) is a biophilic activist, author, and attorney. The natural world speaks and poetry is how Will listens. His law practice is devoted to helping Native American communities protect their sacred sites and cultural resources. He is the author of How Dams Fall and When I Set the Sweetgrass Down. willfalk.org.